Congrats on a very well placed plug on C-Span
courtesy of The Nation's Eric Alterman.It was broadcast today 05/19/01. In the
interview Alterman referred to his new articlerecommending liberal web sites that pose "an
alternative to right-wing politics."

The only two he mentioned on the air were Bartcop
and Media Whores Online!The interviewer specifically asked Alterman about
your site and Alterman referredto it as "highly entertaining" and "very smart."

Again, my hearty congratulations to you Bart (raising
tumbler of Maker's Mark).Hoped you enjoyed your stay in NYC (although
I didn't hear from you *sniffle*) :-)

Take care,Dave

Dave,
If it makes you feel any better, nobody heard from me.

I even had an invitation to meet my good friend Joe Conason,
but if we met,
once I said, "Joe, good to meet you, I'm a big fan," then what?
It'd be the same with meeting Ol' BartCop.
Once you said, "Nice page," then
what?

Sometimes I get the feeling that people who get the jokes on bartcop.commight think meeting me would be like meeting Robin Williams or some
comedian
who could go into a "bit" and be spontaneously funny on command.
In real life, I put the "b" in boring - just ask Christian Livemore.

But, would you like to hear about my trip?

It started with a plane ride.

The flight to Newark was so boring, I was afraid I'd have nothing to
write about.
I was hoping an engine would catch fire or something, just to cause
a stir, but things
livened up a little when the pilot appeared to be lost.

As we got closer and closer to our (hopefully) intended target of Newark
Airport,
I was expecting to see tall buildings. The plane went east for a while,
then north,
then east, then north - making me think he was searching for the New
York area.
I've flown lots of times and I've never seen a jet "search" for a major
city before.

I thought about passing a sugggestion to the stewardess that if we flew
east until
we saw water, we could ask the damn passengers to help the pilot look
for tall buildings.

As the search for New York continued, I read a newspaper account of
famous Republican
animal killer Ted Nugent being sued by former fans. Ebay had
an auction where the "winners"
got front row tickets to a Nuge concert and dinner with him afterwards.
(I'm glad they didn't say what "dinner" was - probably whatever Ted
killed that day.

The high bid was $1535, if you can believe someone would pay that for
a show and dinner
with the Motor City Madman, Mr Wang Dang Sweet Poontang.

Sidebar:If you like Ted's music - fine. Let's agree to
disagree on what good music is.But don't write and say you're dumping bartcop.com
after all these years becauseI said something less-than charitable about a
right-wing Republican fund-raiser.

But instead of front row tickets, they got 30th row tickets and instead
of dinner,
they got a "How ya doin?" from Ted, so they're suing their former rock
idol for fraud.

The pilot was a wiseguy, always pointing out things for us to look at.
For instance, he said, "If you look out your
window, you'll see Columbus, Ohio."

So I did, and here's what I saw:

Ya gotta love a major airline pilot with a twisted sense of humor.

A while later, he came on the PA and said "Below
us is Wilkes-Barre, PA," so I looked again.

Gee, Wilkes-Barre looks a lot like Columbus.

Eventually we landed in Newark, but still, I saw no tall buildings.
We met the lovely Christian Livemore (CAL) and her friend Ray.Since we landed at 4:30, Ray knew traffic would be impossible, so he
took us on the
New Jersey tour on the way to the George Washington Bridge that would
take us to Manhattan.

Our
first peek at the tall buildings.

We stopped at Jersey's Liberty Park and saw the Statue of Liberty.

I was shocked to learn that the wording on the statue's base had been
changed to:
"Give us your roughnecks, your engineers and
your geologists. We already have enough poor darkies,
thank you."

It's good to have a Dad in the CIA...

So, we're getting closer to the city - THE city.
New York, I've always said, is the center of the universe.
If, for example, you're a big rock band, and you haven't played New
York,
and you haven't won them over, then you're not
a big rock band.

If you make it there, you make it anywhere.
New York - about 30 years ahead of K-Drag.

After our Jersey tour, we were ready to join THE city.

Of course, there's that little traffic problem, but we had an expert
at the wheel.

SidebarI need to say this before I forget. CAL's
friend, Ray, not only had a car,and knew his way around, but he was an encyclopedia
on New York.Any time I pointed to a building and said, "What's
that?" he knew the year it was built,the architect, the current oocupants - the works.
If you ever make it to New York, hire him.He knew everything. To me, being in New
York is like being 20 years into the future.Having an extremely well-read and intelligent
guide meant the world to me.It was like Stump the Band. He knew everything.

As we approached the hotel, it was hard to find because they lied so
much
on their website and brochures. We were staying at the Chelsea Savoy,
which was located in the Chelsea district of New York, which is gay.

I'm so naive, I didn't even know New York had a gay part of town.
We sure don't have any gay parts of town in Oklahoma.
Know how I know there's no gay parts of town in K-Drag?
Because they're not burned to the ground, that's how.

Private bathrooms?
Color, cable TV?
Air conditioners?
Soda and ice machines is "the works?"
That describes every Motel 6 from Bangor to San Diego.
Are the gay people in San Fransisco that easily impressed?
Jesus Christ, for $180 a night, you should get ...well, let's not go
there.

We did a ceremonial shot of Chinaco Anejo.You didn't think we'd forget the Chinaco, did you?

And now, for the first time in our lives, we're going to do New York.
We took a quick NY taxicab ride to "the Village," Greenwich Village.
(For the newbies, it's pronounced "gren-ich.")

We just started walking.

Block after block - mile after mile of little shops, restaurants, bakeries,
bookstores,
and every small business you could think of, block after block - mile
after mile.
It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. I have samples coming up
- wait for it.
Besides that, we had some great conversation, we were laughing and
making jokes,
it was an exciting start to an exciting vacation.

But the walking got to me after a while.
I told a while back I was out of shape, ...so, ...Mrs. BartCop
& I joined a health club and we've
been 15-20 times on the treadmills and bikes and rowing machines, so
I thought we could walk.

No...

We walked and we walked.
We got a week's worth of geography in just a few hours.
All the time, Ray was answering questions about Manhattan, the other
boroughs, the subways,
New York cabs, local government (Ray's into bartcop.com )
so we were absorbing more important data
than Spock failed to record on "City of the Edge of Forever."

As we continued to walk, my dawgs started to bark.
Maybe CAL and Ray have built up some immunity, but we did some walking.
In New York - you don't drive.
You take a bus or a subway near where you're going - then you finish
it.

In New York, "next door" means within a mile, and "nearby" means
the subway don't even go there.

So we end up at the Chat & Chew.I know, Chat & Chew won "worst restaurant name" the last
three years running, ...butthe food.

Sidebar:Never trust anything you read on the www or see
or read in the whore media, but trust this:New York is the king of food.Don't worry, I have my case laid out in dozens
of photo exhibits, but that's a fact.Vegas can't touch New York for food, at
least not in my price range.

The Chat & Chew was the only normal restaurant we'd see this
trip.
CAL said she'd heard good things about the Thanksgiving Dinner Special.I, of course, immediately flashed back to Thanksgiving 1999
debacle at the Rio in Vegas,

The Chat & Chew turkey dinner was spectacular.
I know - you're thinking it was only turkey with all the fixins, right?

Lemme tell you, this turkey was sliced paper-thin.
Where have you ever seen paper-thin turkey before? Ever?

The potatoes were real, the stuffing was crunchy-perfect, the cranberry
was tangy
and under the cranberry, there was some kind of veggie mix that broke
the bank.
I don't even like vegetables, but this was tastier than Angie
Harmon in a two-piece.
I can't even telkl you what they were - a bunch of stuff - but it had
some sauce or
something on it that made those veggies taste better than the turkey.

CAL said there was lots of places in New York that served food this
good.